Local dealership fills showroom with supplies for hurricane victims in Houston

September 8, 2017

MONTGOMERY - It didn't take long for Hulsizer's Chevrolet in Montgomery to become heavily stocked with donations and supplies to go to Texas to help relieve flood victims of Hurricane Harvey which hit with extensive force last week in the greater Houston area.

The numbers of those affected keep rising and help from local residents gave way to a stock room and service area filled with water, paper products, food and so much more to go down to Houston, Texas.

Chris Hann of Muncy reported that in just two hours after he posted on Facebook the need for Hulsizer's to be a drop off point, that donations started coming to the dealership.

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RUTH FRY/The Luminary Chris Hann of Hulsizer Chevrolet stands in the dealership's show room which was filled in three days with donations for the victims of Hurricane Harvey. The amount of donations was so excessive that the overflow took up a lot of space in the service area and the attached garage.

Hann said he asked owner, Bill Schneck, if it would be okay to use the car dealership and he was more than willing to offer the service. Having survived flooding issues in the past, Schneck was empathetic to the situation and encouraged Hann to publicize the drop-off site for donations towards Hurricane Harvey. "Absolutely," he said and knows from experience what it is like to start over.

Hann posted the site on Tuesday, August 29th and by Wednesday afternoon the entire dealership was full. "It just went gangbusters," said Hann. A trickle started to come in earlier on Tuesday, almost shortly after the Facebook posting on Patriot Express, a local Facebook group. Not only was the owner's office fully occupied, but many of the hallways were full, leaving but a small area for passing through.

Hann's efforts were coordinated through a good friend, Stan Nierzwicki, also of Muncy who helped arrange for transportation down to Texas. An employee of Weir Industry near the Lycoming Mall, Nierzwicki was able to provide two large trucks to pick everything up on Friday, September 1st at 6 p.m. with a stop in Virginia along the way.

The grassroots efforts of these two locals to act upon the disaster relief took very little time to coordinate and the response was overwhelming. Hann said that there was a good mix of non-perishable food items, cleaning supplies, mud boots, rags, baby items, school supplies, tools and water. "We will keep on going until it's done!" said Hann.